April Theme: Reading to Write by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

Recently, while I was teaching a class, I decided that I wouldn't be able to work on my WIPs while the course was going on. So, along with some freelance assignments, mostly, I read. And read.

And it was glorious! I read old favourites and new releases. I read genres that I don't often read. I inhaled books that had been sitting on my shelves for years, and some, after a few chapters, were set out on the sidewalk to wait for a more suitable reader. (In this neighborhood, free books don't sit for long.)

Now, I'm between teaching and digging back into WIPs--picture books, novels, fiction and nonfiction--and I realize:

I was working on my WIPs all along.


I can't forget that reading opens up creative waterways that expands my thinking, encourages me to innovate and take risks--it makes my writing better.


And books are just so, so good I KNOW RIGHT?!!?!